Occupy Wall St. now one month old

As the Occupy Wall Street movement turned one month old Monday, the demonstrations picked up steam with an apparent shout out from the White House and $300,000 raised, reports suggest.

But demonstrators have still not settled on a clear set of demands.

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The White House made a reference to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s 99 percent slogan for the first time. President Obama, on his impending three-day bus tour to North Carolina and Virginia, would ensure “the interests of the 99 percent of Americans are well-represented on the tour,” White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said Sunday. The slogan references the notion, advanced by the protesters, that 99 percent of Americans are being exploited by the top 1 percent.

The Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City has raised almost $300,000 through its website and donations on the street, according to the Associated Press. The protesters have also received as gifts significant amounts of food, blankets and medical supplies. Supporters are shipping hundreds of boxes a day, and monetary donations continue to pour in to an Occupy Wall Street account at Amalgamated Bank, which describes itself as “the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States.”

But the movement, which started with demonstrations on Sept. 17, has been unable to agree on or articulate what it hopes to achieve.

In New York City, the protesters occupying Zuccotti Park have not yet set out a list of specific proposals. The demonstration’s “demands committee” held a meeting last Monday to discuss these ideas, and are meeting twice a week to develop a list of concrete suggestions, which will eventually take to the General Assembly for a vote, according to the New York Times. A two-thirds majority will be necessary for the adoption of policy demands.

“We absolutely need demands,” Shawn Redden, a history teacher and protestor, told the New York Times. “Like Frederick Douglass said, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand.’”